Now here's a farewell speach

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**Frazzled**

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/18/banking-useconomy

So long, suckers. Millionaire hedge fund boss thanks 'idiot' traders and retires at 37Andrew Clark in New York The Guardian, Saturday October 18 2008
Article history
The boss of a successful US hedge fund has quit the industry with an extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged "idiots" and thanking "stupid" traders for making him rich.

Andrew Lahde's $80m Los Angeles-based firm Lahde Capital Management in Los Angeles made a huge return last year by betting against subprime mortgages.

Yesterday the 37-year-old told his clients that he had hated the business and had only been in it for the money. And after declaring he would no longer manage money for other people, because he had enough of his own, Lahde said that instead he intended to repair his stress-damaged health; he made it clear he would not miss the financial world.

"The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.

"All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."

Lahde became one of the biggest names in the investment industry when one of his funds produced a return of 866% last year, largely by forecasting the US home loans industry would collapse.

In his farewell letter, which concluded with an appeal for the legalisation of marijuana, Lahde said he was happy with his rewards and did not envy those who had made even more money.

"I will let others try to amass nine, 10 or 11 figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck," he wrote, citing a life of back-to-back business appointments relieved only by a two-week annual holiday in which financiers are still "glued to their Blackberries".

Lahde's retirement came amid an implosion among the hedge fund industry - some 350 of the funds have liquidated this year, according to Hedge Fund Research.

His final words of advice? "Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life."

**gorgon**

That is friggin' awesome. Hope he has a ridiculously good time with that money.

If you've worked in the industry, you'd know he's really not wrong about a lot of what he says.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

I seriously hope that report is accurate!

Sounds like my kind of man!

**Kilkrazy**

Kudos to him!

Britain had a similar successful fund manager who retired at 40 a couple of years ago saying he wanted to do something more interesting and worthwhile with his life. He wasn't quite as outspoken about it as that guy.

Very few fund managers ever make better returns than the tracker funds.

**grizgrin**

Sometimes, it's ok to burn your bridges. Especially when there's not many people left on the side you are getting away from.

**Frazzled**

As Shaka Zulu once said (supposedly). Always burn your bridges. you never know who's coming up behind you.

**JohnHwangDD**

If he's sitting on that much money, he never really needs to look back.

**Waaagh_Gonads**

How do you bet that something is going to implode and make money?

You can't buy the shares early as they would fall, losing value.
You wouldn't buy the debt when the market drops, because its currently worse than having sex with dead fat people.

Is this more 'imaginary money turned real' by a 'market' that is so complex and intellectual?

**Frazzled**

shorts and contra funds

**JohnHwangDD**

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:How do you bet that something is going to implode and make money?

Obviously, he figured out a way to do it, do it big, and bet enough cash to make enough money so he could give the world the finger. It's pretty cool, actually...

**dogma**

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:How do you bet that something is going to implode and make money?

You can't buy the shares early as they would fall, losing value.
You wouldn't buy the debt when the market drops, because its currently worse than having sex with dead fat people.

Is this more 'imaginary money turned real' by a 'market' that is so complex and intellectual?

Invest in firms that don't have significant holdings in Mortgage Backed Securities. Then sell right after those companies buy the failed firms that did have MSB holdings. Truthfully, this is very close to insider trading. But that's ok, what the banks did borders on price fixing.

**Frazzled**

Er ..no price fixing has nothing to do with the mortgage and current credit crisis. Greed, bad intentions by Congressmen who won't get voted out no matter what, and lack of oversight did.

And the rating agencies. This is 0 - 2 for them.

**dogma**

First, of all there is no 'record' for rating agencies.

Second, while there may have been no conscious decision to fix prices, the sheer size of the banks involved meant that no single financial innovation would be able to significantly damage the well-being of any given entity. Instead, each bank could absorb their losses, and adapt with remarkable alacrity. Thus the choices of the deeply interconnected financial sector served to violate a fundamental principle of the free-market as they acted in conglomeration as a monopoly. Thus proving the necessity of government regulation.

**Frazzled**

You're wrong there doggie boy.

1) Every major bank keeps a track record of the movements of the ratings vs. other criteria and their own internal ratings of said clients.

2) What I was referring to was the Enron/marketer fiasco of 2001-2002. The ratings agencies caught it in the gonads on that one, both publicly and privately.

**BloodDefiler**

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:

You wouldn't buy the debt when the market drops, because its currently worse than having sex with dead fat people.

Did no one catch this?!? Dear god! That is horrible!

Very graphic, thanks Gonads. Thanks a lot. How would you try to recreate this...maybe lie on 300lbs of cold Jello, covered in cottage cheese?

::shudder::

Sorry for the brief disruption...please, carry on the friendly money debate.

Blood

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:You're wrong there doggie boy.

1) Every major bank keeps a track record of the movements of the ratings vs. other criteria and their own internal ratings of said clients.

2) What I was referring to was the Enron/marketer fiasco of 2001-2002. The ratings agencies caught it in the gonads on that one, both publicly and privately.

True. But there is more than one rating agency, and not all of their prognostications are the same. Enron investors simply trusted the wrong set of data, and got burned.

**Frazzled**

Sorry but thats less accurate than it could be. S&P and Moodys generally are within one notch of each other. Fitch follows S&P like a puppy (we don't even look at them any more, there's no point). Duff and Phelps is ok but it follows S&P as well. Historically Moodys was more conservative, but again only by one notch usually, and that depends on the sub industry. I will say you are correct in one point, if there is more than a one notch difference it deserves to be looked at.

I like CreditEdge myself. Its the most responsive to news changes as is a good leading indicator of problems in a company.

**dogma**

That's actually pretty enlightening. My knowledge of economics is more theoretical than practical. Though I'm trying to pick up some experience in the area. A lot of the defense work I do pretty much turns on that breadth of knowledge.

**Frazzled**

will PM Dogma

**JohnHwangDD**

dogma wrote:Thus proving the necessity of government regulation.

Except, the very government that was supposed to be overseeing the lenders told them "don't worry, go ahead and write loans to people who can't possibly pay them off..."

**dogma**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
dogma wrote:Thus proving the necessity of government regulation.

Except, the very government that was supposed to be overseeing the lenders told them "don't worry, go ahead and write loans to people who can't possibly pay them off..."

Yep. That's what happens when you stop paying taxes. Government officials looks to corporate interests as a means of deriving funding for reelection projects. It is a gross injustice to assume that the current crisis is anything but a result of the American belief that one can have his cake and eat it too.